Getting There
by looneytails
Summary: Before there was Fitzsimmons, there were Fitz and Simmons, and a lot of misunderstandings about their names.
1. The Coffee Incident

**Chapter 1: The Coffee Incident**

_When you walked into the room just then, it's like the sun came out. Oh, I'm an atom in a sea of nothing, looking for another to combine. Maybe we could be the start of something, be together at the start of time._

Jemma Simmons woke up that morning with the sunlight that shone through her open curtains. It took her a moment to stretch and put her thoughts in order, and that was when she realized that she was most probably already late for her first lecture of the day – biophysics, of all things – because there was no way she'd feel that well rested with only three hours of sleep.

Her mind, the girl decided, was a strange little thing. It seemed to trick itself into feeling she'd had a full night's sleep merely because she'd slept one or two hours more than she was supposed to. Fascinating, really.

Snapping out of her thoughts, the girl frantically got up. She tripped over her tangled sheets but managed to keep her balance, running towards the bathroom. Thankfully, her clothes had been separated before she went to bed, and all Jemma had to do was take a shower before hurrying to class.

A great start for her first semester at the academy.

The previous night, she'd been so utterly amazed by a review on the neurochemistry of music that she'd spent most of the hours usually reserved for sleep in pubmed, searching for similar articles.

It was about the findings reported in those papers that she thought as she made her way through the grounds to her favorite coffee shop.

She normally preferred a balanced breakfast and tea, but there was no time, and the caffeine would come in handy.

As she entered the building of the Biophysics Institute, Jemma stuffed a bagel in her mouth and continued to run, barely escaping a collision with a student that came in the opposite direction. She twirled to the side, fumbling to reach the timetable in her pocket while still holding onto her coffee.

"Blimey!" The girl exclaimed as she stepped on someone's foot, crashing into the person and pulling them to the ground with her.

She fell backwards, and the coffee flew from her hand, the hot, heavily sweetened drink spilling across the floor. Her eyes closed on their own, trying to shut off the disastrous situation she'd just caused.

"Are you okay?" Someone asked from behind her with worry and a Scottish accent.

Jemma turned to the stranger, an embarrassed smile on her lips.

"I'm so sorry. I'm just terribly late and I wasn't looking where I was going, not as much as I should have at least." She started to get up, trying to collect the pieces of her bagel, now scattered around in little crumbs. "What a mess I've made. Are you hurt? The coffee –"

"What are you havering about?" The boy chuckled, pulling her up by her forearm. He had blondish curly hair and his cheeks were colored red, lips twisted in something that was almost a grimace, like he wanted to laugh at her, but was too shy to actually do it. "Everything is fine. I need to get to class, though, so I'll be going, if you don't mind."

_He's cute._

This thought startled her, making Jemma shake her head, before reaching for the stranger.

"Just… You are _not_ hurt, correct?" Her expression was of nervousness, eyes eagerly searching for any coffee that could have seeped through his white button-up and burned him. Around them, a cleaning crew was arriving, mops and buckets and discrete glares in Jemma's direction, to which the girl remained oblivious.

"Hm, no, I mean yes, I'm alright." He answered, shifting uncomfortably under her scrutiny. "I really should…"

"Oh!" The girl smiled, finally accepting that he was okay. She pointed at the book he'd been holding, suddenly excited. "I see you're taking biophysics, as well! Not my favorite subject, but there are marvelous applications to some of Professor Gilbert's theories, and I couldn't pass off the opportunity!"

Her excitement triggered something in the stranger, because he turned to her more fully, eyes widening with interest.

"Yes!" He gestured in her direction. "I thought I was the only one interested in the neural circuitry as a model for replication, not in the sense of artificial intelligence, but as an inducer or, or…"

"Or as a duplicator of human emotions and diseases! _In silico_ experiments as such would cause a revolution in the neurochemical field." Jemma agreed, reaching into her backpack for the article she'd been reading the previous night. "His model is a hundred years ahead of any existing project, but there are bioengineers arguing that he's ignoring the unpredictability of the human brain! As if a man like him would make this sort of mistake!"

The boy snorted, crossing his arms and leaning towards her.

"Maybe, but what would you propose in order to surpass _that_ obstacle?"

Jemma blinked and stopped her search for the article, taken aback by his proximity. Awareness and embarrassment washed over the stranger's face, and he took a step back, muttering apologies under his breath.

"I don't know yet." She conceded after a moment, expression softening. "But I will. I'm Jemma Simmons, by the way." She smiled awkwardly at him, extending her hand for him to shake.

"Fitz." He shook it, stammering over his response. "Leo Fitz, actually, but I prefer Fitz."

There was a spark of recognition in her eyes, and the girl moved forward, now gripping his hand with her both.

"The engineering prodigy?" She jumped in place, as if her enthusiasm was sipping through her pores and out of her system in every possible way. "It's so nice to finally meet you! The director was right then, he said we would eventually find each other, since we are the youngest students in the entire academy." Jemma chuckled. "This is certainly the most absurd coincidence I've ever experienced."

Fitz smiled at her words, unsure of how to react to her energetic ways.

"You must be the English chemist." He stated, tilting his head to the side. "A genius, I hear."

Much to his surprise, she beamed at him, not sheepish in the least.

"Biochemist, to be specific." She stopped, letting go of his hand, and the smile slipped from her expression. "But we're not being specific. I didn't mean to brag."

The tilt in Fitz lips spoke of warmth, though, and the two laughed.

"We should get in, though. It's this way. Professor Gilbert started the lesson an hour ago, and I think he knows who we are, since the director made such a fuss about our presence here." The boy sighed softly, looking preoccupied.

"Politics." Jemma offered, still smiling brightly as they walked to the classroom.

The auditory was almost crowded, few chairs still unoccupied, and the sound of students talking or writing filled the entire room. The pair was thankful for it, because the creak of the doors was ignored in the midst of it all.

They weren't, however, as successful in their attempt to find seats.

Just as Jemma slid her backpack to the ground, resigning herself to the fact that a first row seat would only make their tardiness even more obvious to the professor, Gilbert turned around. He eyed the two of them with distaste, casting a look down to his watch.

"Fitz, Simmons, nice of you to join us."

* * *

**Yes, this is a multichaptered fic, because I can't handle my FitzSimmons' feelings right now. This is my take on them through the years.**

**The song is Start of Time, by Gabrielle Aplin.**

**I hope you guys enjoy it!**


	2. The Cause To An Incident

**Chapter 2: The Cause To An Incident**

_Let's make this happen, girl. You gonna show the world that something good can work, and it can work for you. And you know that it will._

Jemma Simmons sighed once again, rubbing her temples in an attempt to lighten the headache that was starting to settle. She'd been trying to concentrate on the lesson for the past half an hour, but her mere three hours of sleep were finally catching up to her.

Her eyelids were closing down on their own accord, and the girl could almost hear Professor Gilbert's chastising her for falling asleep. In fact, this exact dream was already forming in her clouded mind, the figure of the middle-eastern man rising from troubled thoughts and formulas, all dark hair and irritated scowl. And, then, it was gone.

Someone had just nudged her on the ribs.

The biochemist opened her eyes, blinking rapidly in surprise and nervousness, before realizing that the professor hadn't been the one to wake her up.

She glanced at Fitz, stilling her breath now that the threat of being called out in front of everyone had passed. The boy was smirking down at his notes, obviously amused, but seemed way too invested in the lecture to actually tease her for it.

The young biochemist was thankful for this. In university, she'd been too young, too easily distinguished and picked on, and the soft warmth of Fitz's friendship was a refreshing change from her days of being ignored or bullied.

She hadn't expected to like the academy so much, but she also hadn't expected to meet someone like him.

_And he's cute._

Simmons shook her head and, then, grimaced, because the movement had made pain burst like a supernova behind her eyelids.

She needed to get rid of these thoughts, of course. Finding a friend who was actually interested in her scientific rants had been hard enough; she didn't even want to consider the difficulties of dating when in the middle of government training. Especially when the friend in question was also aiming for a researcher position in Interpol.

Yes, that would be too awkward.

The girl felt something brush against her hands and she looked down to find a small paper parachute sitting on her desk, a basket with a single pill attached to it.

She looked over at Fitz once again, brows scrunched up in confusion, silently asking what he wanted her to do with this strange combination of things.

His eyes were fixed on her, and they were bright and pale blue under the artificial light of the auditorium. He looked satisfied with himself but a bit aggravated at her, because he was tapping his forehead with a finger and gesturing towards the small parachute.

Through her amusement and incredulity, Simmons finally understood.

Immediately, there were three consecutive thoughts occupying her mind: 1) He'd noticed she had a headache and given her a way to alleviate it; 2) How cute; and 3) _Oh, bloody hell_.

As Simmons downed the pill with a sip from the water bottle he'd slipped towards her feet, she suddenly felt like a teenager girl again, with a fluttering in her stomach and overly aware of the boy sitting inches from her.

To distract herself, she started to disassemble the parachute and basket, fingers moving to smooth down the paper and eyes at anything but Fitz. It was because of this sudden nervousness that she noticed the doodles on it: three frames, what she supposed to be a person, an exponential function and a differentiate.

"A wild Exponential Function appears." Said the first frame, and the familiarity of it sent a rush of amusement thought her. In the next: "You use Differentiate." Which was followed by: "It's not very effective."

Simmons grinned, trying to muffle a giggle against the back of her hand. Fitz could be extremely simple in his sense of humor, but it was all strangely endearing. She liked that he could understand the most complicated theories about the formation of the universe and the laws that hold it together, while still finding pleasure in things like a Pokémon/Calculus joke.

"You are absurd." She muttered under her breath, not bothering to shift her eyes from Professor Gilbert, who'd started talking about a new equation related to ion flux in the plasmatic membrane. By her side, Fitz snickered, but said nothing, and she could almost feel his thoughts in her own mind. "And you're already imagining an artificial membrane, aren't you?"

The boy glanced at her sheepishly, a hint of redness on his cheeks.

"The mechanical implications would be brilliant!" He countered, his voice a bit too loud.

"Oh Fitz!" She exhaled, exasperated. "You know how I feel about your attempts on mechanical models of human biology!"

"The guys from my lab overstate that story. It was a very small fire! And I'll not go into the artificial intelligence discussion again, Simmons." His Scottish accent bled through the words, and the silence that followed his outburst was so dense that it finally alerted the two to the stares they'd attracted.

Professor Gilbert had stopped talking. Instead, he was scowling at the pair, annoyed by their interruption of his class.

A wave of shame washed through Simmons, as she realized that they had caused a disruption, even if accidently. It was the sort of action she'd condemned when younger, the clear disrespect towards figures of authority.

Oh, what was America _doing_ to her?

"Why don't you two take this outside?" The professor's proposition came with an undertone of irritation, and they flinched, embarrassed.

"That won't be necessary, we–" Fitz started, stopping abruptly when the older man raised his hand, gesturing for silence.

"It wasn't a suggestion, Mr. Fitz."

* * *

"I can't believe he wouldn't let us stay." Fitz was muttering under his breath, his expression shifting from appalled to amused.

Simmons walked besides him, eyes focused on her shoelaces with the sort of intent she usually depicted when analyzing a difficult equation. She hadn't taken the whole thing as well as her friend, and the boy noticed she was still shaking a bit.

"I got kicked out of class." She whispered, more to herself than to Fitz. "I have never been in this sort of situation before. Is–" She hesitated, pressing her lips with severity. "Is there some protocol that we should follow or a… a task that we should accomplish before our next class?"

Fitz chuckled at this, seeming much more comfortable with their situation now that she was freaking out.

"You're one mental lass, aren't ya?" The boy smiled, and the childish joy in it made something turn in her stomach. "It's not like we don't already know just about everything he says. We take it for the credits; if we don't need to listen to it, even better!" He waited for Simmons to meets his eyes, before bumping their shoulders together. "Right?"

She grinned.

"Right! We just got kicked out of class." She bit her lip, bringing a hand to muffle her giggles. "Oh dear, we just got kicked out of class."

And, then, they were laughing.

"Not my first time," confessed Fitz. "Teachers never really appreciated the beauties that were my make-shift robots."

Simmons rolled her eyes at his words, but the grin that took her lips didn't diminish. She had learned quickly not to take the boy's tales of mischief as more than nonsense, mere brags created to hide his true insecurities.

_He's cute._

"Well, I think they are wonderful." She chuckled. "And I feel more invigorated now. Thank you for that."

The smile the girl gave Fitz in that moment seemed to disarm him, and he shifted in place, a light blush creeping onto his cheeks.

_He's cute._

Simmons blinked, uneasy with her thoughts. She wasn't the type to be easily attracted to people, but there was something about this Scottish boy that had been bothering her since the beginning. She'd initially attributed it to their proximity in age – very early twenties –, and the similarities in their curriculums, a likeness that was only highlighted by their differences with the other students.

It wasn't every day that she met someone with as many degrees as him, nor with his natural curiosity to areas besides the one he'd specialized on.

And the more time she spent with him, the more that attraction grew. It was only logical for her to do something about it, in spite of what other consequences might come from her actions.

"Would you…" She hesitated, opening and closing her mouth in a picture that was most likely comic, a knowledge that only served to make her feel even more self-conscious. "Would you like to go grab some coffee?"

Simmons turned to the side, trying to hide her flaming cheeks. She hadn't meant to sound so American.

Fitz glanced down at his watch, looking every bit as oblivious to her strange reactions as he'd been for the past two months.

"Sure." He smiled, combing his curls back with his fingers. "It's been _ages_ since I last went out with friends!" His eyes widened as he realized what he'd just said. "I didn't mean to sound that desperate."

"Oh!" Simmons exclaimed before she could stop herself. She shook her head, forcing a grin. "No, that didn't sound desperate at all! You are right, though." The girl pushed herself to sound cheerful. "It _has_ been ages."

Her words seemed fake even to her own ears, but Fitz grinned back at her, almost too blonde and bright in the sun of late morning. He clearly hadn't picked up on her disappointment.

For a genius, that boy certainly had a difficult time reading people.

"I know just the place, too." He thrust his hand into the air, snapping his fingers in realization. "This little coffee shop across campus… I'm not much of a coffee person, but I think you'd like their cappuccino." He furrowed his brow, as if trying to remember something. "That's what you were drinking back then, wasn't it? When you tripped on me."

He had somehow remembered what kind of beverage she'd spilled across the floor when they first met, and all Simmons could do was nod, feeling as that bubbling feeling reappeared in her stomach.

_Oh sodding hell, he is cute._

* * *

**I'm so sorry for how long this took me. My only excuse is that they are extremely difficult to write. English is not my first language, and I never really thought about whether I write American or British english. And then Agents of SHIELD happened.**

**If there's someone who would like to help me with the English/Scottish things, I would love that.**

**The song is Something Good Can Work, by Two Doors Cinema Club.**


End file.
